[ English ]

Let’s discover some alternate kinds of poker other than hold’em, five card stud, five card draw and omaha high. Yes, pai gow poker. Now you might be wondering that pai gow sounds a little Chinese; yes you are right, this game is a mixture of the Chinese game pai gow and our own American poker
Clearly this isn’t one of the highly popular forms of poker but still widely played. It can be played by up to 7 players. It is played with 1 deck of cards, with a joker. Interestingly, the Joker can only be used as an ace, or to complete a straight, flush, a straight flush, or a royal flush. The important detail here to clearly recall is apart from the usual ranking of hands we have an additional winning hand which is "Five Aces" (4 Aces and the Joker). Astonishingly, five aces beats every other hand yes, even a royal flush. Each player is dealt seven cards. The cards are arranged to create two hands; a 2 card hand and a five card hand. The 5 card hand must rank higher or be equivalent to the two card hand.
After arranging the two hands, the cards are positioned on the table face down. Once down, you can’t change them. The dealer will flip over his cards and assemble their hands. Each competitors hand is compared to the dealer’s hands. If the player take 1 hand and lose the other, this is referred to as "push" and no money is exchanged. If croupier wins both hands then the player gives up their wager and vice versa. Now if there is a tie, the croupier wins all. After the hand is competed, the next person clock-wise becomes the dealer and the following hand is dealt.